Nos Censuimus Igitur Essemus

As an actively involved participant and committed investor in the United States public education system, I have witnessed the vitriolic invective and fallacious rhetoric of pundits, politicians, protestors, and "reformers" on the deleterious state of the standard American classroom. As an educator and scholar for the better part of a decade, I have finally reached my wits end and refuse to sit and rage or fume quietly while we ignore the true, the real, the actual problem we refuse to acknowledge and subject to obloquy because too many have the noble notion that our societal salvation can only be achieved through political correctness and positive affirmations. Such blind and baseless dedication to protecting people from hurt feelings has greatly diminished the once matchless intellectual prowess and reputation of American scholarship. This being said, I posit that the primary saboteur of American public education is, unquestionably, the American public. The principle problem is that the American public is woefully uninformed. The founding fathers of this great nation made no mention and laid no groundwork for the establishment of a compulsory, publicly funded system of education for all citizens. The Federal government—Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President of the United States—cannot ever hope to produce anything more than ephemeral changes with regard to our public schools simply because they lack the power to do so. The responsibility falls to the states under what is constitutionally known as “states' rights.” Of course this in no way implies that the discussions never took place.